The meme was started by Mother Jones’ Timothy Murphy, who suggested following @nytprepositions then submitted several excellent rewritten book titles of his own (highlighted below).
Murphy confirmed starting the meme in an email to Poynter’s Andrew Beaujon: “So far as I know, I did. I think I tweeted ‘In Brooklyn, a Tree Grows’ and then it basically went from there, because basically everyone who ever reads the Times has this same impulse to make fun of their headlines. (We tease because we love.)”